While the writing in the article is interesting, it makes the book appear less serious and thoughtful than it really is. I have just started my reading so I will post something later on about my full impressions.
It appears, however, that De Soto makes clear that an economic system, alone, will not be sufficient to make a society properous...you must have the Rule of Law and a firm Defense from Arbitrary Power. In other words, Whiggish tradition as exemplified in Anglo-American success copied in some of Western civilizations but not others. Prescriptive Property Rights being the foundation of how such a Whiggish system relates to Capitalism's ability to harness broad based participation legitamacy.
The chapter starts off with a quote from Adam Smith:
The man of system . . . seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chessboard. He does not consider that the pieces upon the chessboard have no other principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them; but that, in the great chessboard of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might choose to impress upon it. If those two principles coincide and act in the same direction the game of human society will go on easily and harmoniously, and is very likely to be happy and successful, If they are opposite or different, the game will go on miserably and the society must be at all times in the highest degree of disorder.--Adam Smith, , 17591759!!!